Cincinnati Bengals

What is Tony Romo's trade value now?

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 10:14 p.m. ET

Fansided, Jimmy Long/FanSided via The Landry Hat

With Tony Romo’s time in Dallas likely approaching an end, we take a look at what the Dallas Cowboys can expect to get in return for his services.

Jan 1, 2017; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (9) walks off the field after a game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. The Philadelphia Eagles won 27-13. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The 2016 NFL Regular Season has come and gone, and it was likely Tony Romo‘s last season in Dallas.

Despite being the quarterback of America’s Team since 2006, he has probably played his last meaningful down as a Dallas Cowboy.

Thanks to promising rookie quarterback Dak Prescott, Romo has taken a role as the team’s back-up quarterback.

Tony wants to be a starting quarterback, and rightfully so. When he is healthy, he is one of the league’s elite quarterbacks.

On top of his desire to start, his cap hit is a whopping $24.7 million next season.

The Cowboys simply cannot afford, literally and figuratively, to spend that much on a back-up quarterback.

Trading the 36-year old veteran will save the team $5.1 million on their salary cap.

On top of that, they’ll save $16.3 million and $20.5 million in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

What does all of this mean?

Unfortunately for lifelong Tony Romo fans such as myself, it means that the sun is setting on the Romo-era in Big D.

So, how exactly will the team go about trading him?

And what can they expect to get?

Let’s try to figure it out.

Jan 1, 2017; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (9) throws a pass against the Philadelphia Eagles during the second quarter at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

What Team?

First things first, if the Dallas Cowboys are to trade Tony Romo, they have to find someone willing to take him. They’ll likely only trade him to a contender – some team that thinks they’re a quarterback away from a Super Bowl.

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Any dreams of the Cowboys collecting a bounty of draft picks from perennial bottom-feeding teams is unrealistic. They owe Tony as much to not trade him to a bad team. Furthermore, he isn’t as valuable to losing teams that are in search of their next franchise quarterback. He’s just too old.

So, I see two realistic options. The Denver Broncos or the Houston Texans. Both teams have championship caliber defenses, and both have weapons on offense. They’re both just missing one thing. Yep, you guessed it: solid quarterback play.

The Broncos have been struggling all year with an inconsistent offense that just can’t seem to score points against good teams. The Texans suffered from such bad quarterback play that they benched their $70 million quarterback in favor of a 2014 4th round pick by the name of Tom Savage.

Romo would represent a massive upgrade to either team in terms of quarterback play, so now the question is: how much does he cost?

Jan 1, 2017; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (9) passes past the rush of Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Vinny Curry (75) and defensive end Connor Barwin (98) during the second quarter at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

What Price?

This is what it comes down to. I’m not a trade expert myself, so I researched some precedent for trading quarterbacks. Here are some of the trades I found:

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Okay. That’s four trades to look at for precedent. Let’s try to dissect them a little.

The 1993 trade of Joe Montana features the quarterback closest in age to Tony Romo. However, Montana was a 4-time Super Bowl Champion and 3-time Super Bowl MVP prior to being traded. Tony Romo has never made it to the NFC Championship game.

Brett Favre was also a Super Bowl winning quarterback, but he was 3 years older than Tony at the time of his trade. 3 years makes a big difference this late in a quarterbacks career.

Carson Palmer and Sam Bradford share similar situations. Neither were as good as Tony Romo at the time they were traded, however both were significantly younger.

So where does this leave us?

Jan 1, 2017; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (9) walks onto the field after loss against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. The Eagles defeated the Cowboys, 27-13. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

Conclusion

Tony Romo will probably command a trade in the middle of the trades discussed previously. He doesn’t have postseason success, but he has proven he is capable of playing at a high level. He became particularly more intriguing after a strong, albeit limited, performance against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 17.

At the end of the day, I believe Romo will be traded to Denver, for something along the lines of the Sam Bradford deal. The Broncos have a fairly complete roster, including two young quarterbacks. They would view Tony as a guy that could immediately start for them, and give them a chance to win another championship.

In addition, I’m sure Denver’s GM John Elway views Tony as a player that can mentor his two young quarterbacks, Trevor Siemmian and Paxton Lynch. If that’s the case, then the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos may be in business.

Predicted Trade

The Broncos don’t know what they are getting initially, so Dallas only gets their 2nd round selection in 2017. They also get a conditional 3rd round pick from Denver in 2018, which can escalate to a second round selection in Romo starts more than 12 games in 2017, and a first round selection if he leads to at least the AFC Championship game.